the president will have a chance to make his case, to tell the country he's not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors and comparing one of the most hideous acts on the african-american community in america's history to a political act is is simply inappropriate. mary turner never saw a trial of any kind. neither did her husband. she's one of those people whose stories are now told at the national memorial in montgomery, alabama. a solemn place that remembers the lives and deaths of those who were lynched. o place where our painful history and the words we use about that history do matter. right now, katy tur picks up our coverage. >> well put. thank you. good afternoon, i'm katy tur. it's 11:00 a.m. out west where as a a key witness appears on capitol hill to testify on president trump's actions in ukraine, the president now says the inquiry is a lynching.

his words. today is day 29 of the impeachment inquiry. bill taylor, the diplomat who said it would be crazy to withhold aid for political purposes is in front of lawmakers. that deposition is still ongoing, but here is how one democrat has described what he's heard so far. >> all i have to say is that in my ten short months in congress, it's not even noon, right? and this is the, my most disturbing day in congress so far. very troubling. >> taylor is expect ed to give context to the texts between himself, sondland and volker. in the text, he questioned whether aid and a white house meeting hinged on ukraine's compliance to investigate the president's rivals. a question that was met with a calming from sondland. this as democrats have zeroed in

on one sweeping charge as a framework for their impeachment case against the president. abuse of power. and a new poll shows support for the inquiry now out paces operation for the first time. half of americans say donald trump should be impeached and removed from office. joining me from capitol hill, msnbc correspondent garrett hague and political contributor, jake sherman. jeff mason, also with me, former state department senior adviser and former white house senior director, everybody, welcome. garrett, wow. that was quite a statement from that congressman about what he's heard so r far. what are you hearing about ta r ltaylor's testimony? testimony >> someone told not to talk about the specifics of what goes

on, but a picture is coming out of a r very disturbing testimony. we are hearing that from a number of members talking about excuse me, we're having some audio problems here. we've been hearing from members about this disturbing testimony. no specific, but they are describing someone who is a meticulous note taker who took significant notes during every call and meeting, that those notes made up the backbone of a thorough opening statement, some 15 pages. again as described by these one member said that taylor is someone who was in ukraine, in the country, through the breadth of the allegations against the president. he was there for the phone call. both before and after. remains there now assing acting ambassador and so he's got a wide breadth of knowledge that these other witnesses. >> garrett, i hope those audio shoots get adjusted. jake, bill taylor is a pivotal,

sorry, a pivotal voice in this investigation. he's somebody who had the text messages, was on the text chain between the other diplomats he was speaking the gordon sondland, saying it would be crazy to withhold aid. are democrats planning at some point, if it is as disturbing as the one lawmaker said, putting him in front of the public instead of hear iing a descriptn of lawmakers? any talk of that in the herbally stage? >> they say yes and we've brought this up many times on this air and i've brought it up in playbook that democrats were concerned for a long time about making the case to the public that the president is deserving of impeach. and they have not at this point decided to do that, which is befuddling to a lot of democrats and explaining to a narrative. i traveled with mike pompeo last week and he told me in an interview that he is playing up this fact that these, these interv interviews are being conducted behind closed doors. so the white house is taking

that ball and run ining with it that these are being conducted behind closed doors. they say this will bring it into public when it's ready. some witnesses they say will be invited back to testify in public settings, but i just talked to a senior democrat minutes ago and they said another two to four weeks before they wrap up these closed door interviews so we're at the end of october, right? it could be until after thanksgiving that they're in these closed door interviews without making this case. >> tell me the significance of testimony from somebody like bill taylor. >> taylor is a professional. he served at west point. he's a career ambassador. he has no reason to play any partisan politics. his number one interest is defending u.s. national security. he actually served for ten years under president bush and obama coordinating assistance to eastern european countries

against russian aggression, so it's not just about the quid pro quo that he'll be able to testify to. he had the brilliant bureaucratic maneuvering in which he said hey, that phone call, i think it's shady what you said in that phone call. he put it all in writing. he could also testify to a br d broader testimony in mihistory. >> jeff mason, the white house is trying to say that the president doesn't know who any of these people are. it may be the president doesn't know bill taylor, but the president knows ambassador sondland and bill taylor is on a text chain with sondland. they're talking about rudy giuliani. that shadowed campaign. what is their defense? >> you're right to point that out. in addition to knowing sondland, he also had a phone call with the ambassador. apparently on that same day when that text chain that we know

about was being held. and either instructed sondland or said just in that phone call there was not a quid pro quo and that ended up then several hours later to be in that text chain as well sochlt to get to your question, i think their defense continues to be there was no quitd p quid pro quo, but that was undermined by the comments he made last week. in general, the president as we've seen from his twitter comments today feels under pressure and feels he's being treated unfairly. >> garrett, what should we expect for the rest of the week? >> the highlight of the rest of the week's testimony will be tomorrow. laura cooper, a top defense department official, she's someone who can provide information about the last link in the chain. the actual military aid designed to get to ukraine but never did. that's if she shows up. in fact, just her walking in the door tomorrow morning will be as noteworthy as anything she says. we've had all these witnesses

come forward who have been former officials or state department official, but so far, their electric fence has held up. if you get a first defense department official here testifying tomorrow, i suspect she will not be the last defense department official testifying. >> so the president is calling this a lynching. he use ued to call investigations into him a witch hunt. now he's using lynching. senator lindsey graham has now echoed those words. let's listen. >> necessary to empower the republican minority in the house to confront accusations against the president, a vote of inquiry allows the president to confront his accuser. until this is done, this is a joke, a sham and a political lynching. >> this is a political lynching. that's from lindsey graham, the senator from south carolina. a state that held many lynchings. jeff mason, was it the intention of the president to tweet

something that inflammatory today in order to distract or to get people angry about his word choice then to say look, everyone's going nuts or does he just use that terminology regularly? >> it's a great question and hard one to answer. certainly this president is good at trying to change the conversation. doing it in a way that distracts people from a different story or issue he doesn't want to focus on. the white house via deputy press secretary said he was not using that word to compare it to the brutal history of limpbling of african-americans in this country. but it's kind of hard to accept that as a statement when he useded it. it's in his twitter account and he is certainly used racially charged language before. >> he's not getting the benefit of the doubt on that. thank you very much. appreciate it. joining me now, new york

democratic congressman who was just in the testimony with bill taylor. thank you very much for joining us. your colleague has just said all i have to say is that in my ten short months in congress, it's not even noon and this is the most disturbing day in the congress so far. very troubling. are you hearing the same thing that is making him so troubled? is that how you would describe the testimony? >> certainly the testimony was explosive. i will say this is the top witness that we've heard from so far. and so yes, i think that witnesses are revealing some very troubling things and we must proceed with the investigation. dot all the is, cross the ts and make sure we present to the judiciary committee, a full report on the accounts of the witnesses and so far, without a doubt taylor has been number one

witness. >> what is troubling? >> i'm not going to get into the details of the testimony obviously, but i think it's troubling that there's talk of rudy giuliani and some of the white house officials you know doing what they were doing with the ukraine. pushing. so this is all troubling and i'm not going to get into the details obviously. i'm not going to diville nlg what's being said in confidence in committee investigations, but certainly i will say that today's testimony was explosive and that taylor is the number one witness that i heard from so far. >> you're coming on our air, call iing it explosive. congressman levin called it troubling, disturbing. what's the american public supposed to do with that without any details behind it? >> i want the american public to be sure when we fully finish this process that we did this deliberately, in a professional

fashion that we heard from all the witnesses then we'll present the body of evidence that we have to the american public and the judiciary committee. i think that's what the american public wants. i don't want to shoot off the cuff or say something prematurely. i want to have all the evidence and facts off the table. >> if republicans were coming out here and saying this, they would be accused by democrat of trying to bake the cake before anybody is able to get a word in edge wise. sorry, that was a mixed metaphor there. but they're trying to firm up the narrative before the transcript comes out or before taylor himself testifies in public. is it fair to describe something that way in those desire terms then not to reveal what he's saying? >> all i can tell you is that i feel sorry for my republican colleagues that prematurely went out there and blindly supported the president and went blindly into this without really taking their time. >> that's not whreally what i

asked. i'm saying is it fair for you to come out and call the testimony trouble iing and disturbing and give the impression that's what it's going to be like before the american public has a chance to read the transcript for themselves or hear from bill taylor directly. when you're not going to divulge what you're doing, i wonder if you're charactizie characterizi the public has a chance to see it. >> to me as a dually elected member of congress, i found it to be troubling and disturbing and i will you know when we're finished, hopefully soon, we will present to the american people our argument and i'm sure they will feel confident that we were in a process that we can all feel proud of. >> is it far beyond what we've seen publicly? we've seen the president's phone call with the president of ukraine. the read out that the white house handed out made public. we've seen the text messages

between taylor and sondland and volker about what was going on behind the scenes. was it farther, was it worse than what is already out there? >> that's a lot to begin with. you just described a whole lot on the table to begin with. and to add today's testimony really is a straw that breaks the camel's back. >> so more than what we've seen. >> absolutely. >> congressman thank you very much for joining us. >> thank you so much. and still ahead, bernie sanders is back, but polls show him trail iing in a state he nearly tied in 201. what's changed? his campaign manager is with us. plus, the -- is in contingency mode. how they're planning for the possibility that the white house will withdrawal troops. but first, the fight to get the president's taxes could get tracked to the supreme court. what could that mean? chuck rosenberg is here after a quick break. mean

chuck rosenberg is here after a quick break. johnsbut we're also a cancer fighting, hiv controlling, joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you.

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i don't think you people with the laws and by the way, i would say that it's cost me anywhere from 2 to $5 billion to be president and that's okay. between what i lose and what i could have made. i would have made a fortune if i just ran my business. i was doing it really well. >> yesterday, the president called the clause of the constitution phony and the d.c.

circuit court of appeals might disagree. the court announced it will hear arguments over a lawsuit about his potential violations of that clause in early december. meanwhile, the second circuit court of appeals is expected to issue an opinion soon in the fight for the president's tax returns. oral arguments are scheduled for tomorrow. depending on the court's opinion, either side could then take the case to the supreme court. joining me now, former u.s. attorney and former fbi senior official, chuck rosenberg. he's also an msnbc contributor. let's focus on the taxes, chuck. do you mind just gaming out the scenarios for me. >> absolutely. so from the vantage point of the district attorney in manhattan, they have a valid investigation, potential violenation of new yo state law. they've issued a subpoena and they want evidence. from the vantage points of the president's attorneys, they

argue that because a sitting president can't be charged and i think illogically extended to an argument that a sitting president can't even be investigated, the federal district court judge who heard that argument found the president's argument to be quote unquote repugnant. there is no basis in the law i believe to suggest a sitting president can't be investigated. >> so what happens with those tax returns? will the public see them? >> well, maybe. at some point if charges are brought. when charges are brought, typically, evidence is made public either in trial r or through a plea agreement but in the investigatory stage, probably not. the way federal prosecutors and state prosecutors do their work, is typically in secret, in private and there's a simple reason for that. if it turns out that we're investigating you know, you, which would never logically happen, and you did nothing wrong which is perfectly logical shlg we wouldn't want the details of that investigation

made public and neither would you so during the investigation, we probably won't see it. after the investigation, we probably do if charges are brought. >> let me ask you about a lashlg largish issue here. the president and white house claimed the -- while in office. based on a memo. could we see that challenged in court or that made into something more permanent than a memo or thrown out entirely? >> that's a great question. that's two memos. one by the nixon presidency. one issued during the clinton presidency by the department of justice. they say the same thing, that a sitting president can't be charged, but it's not law. just policy. so i could imagine a hypothetical in which a state prosecutor maybe the district attorney in manhattan, cyrus vance, charges the president and then that very question becomes a one that we have to litigate.

courts have never weighed in. it's just policy at this point. and right now because it's policy, federal prosecutors have to follow it, but state prosecutors do not. they're not bound by it. >> interesting. the other committee is on e mollmen mollments. other cases on them have been thrown out. there's one that so far has not been. can you explain to us what this is and what will happen with that or what might happen. >> sure. absolutely. by the way if i could take a step backwards, the president described it as phony. it's not phony. a part of the constitution. you find it in two places in article one and two of the constitution. so the litigation concerns whether or not the president has violated that very real clause of the constitution by supplementing income from foreign sources. our founders didn't want our president or really any public official beholden to foreign

sources of income so this very real clause is is many in the constitution for a very real purpose and concerns whether or not the president violated that clause. >> chuck rosenberg, thank you so much for coming in. listen to chuck's podcast. and bernie sanders nearly won iowa in 2016. now u polls show him in fourth place. so what's changed and what will happen next? his campaign manager joins me to discuss their strategy, but first breaking news on the department of homeland security. a name is in the running to be the next act iing chief. new news from julie and i next. . new news from julie and i next a. man 2 vo: proof that i can fight psoriatic arthritis... woman 2 vo: ...with humira. woman 3 vo: humira targets and blocks a specific source of inflammation that contributes to both joint and skin symptoms. it's proven to help relieve pain, stop further irreversible joint damage,

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multiple sources say that the white house is strongly considering chad wolf to replace the current secretary of homeland security. before that, he was kirsten nielsen's chief of staff where internal e-mails obtained by nbc news, wolf was an early architect of the trump administration's family separation policy. if chosen, wolf is only expected to hold the position for a short

time as the white house finds an official nominee, but senior administration officials worry there's no one confirmable who wants the job. joining me, julia. good to have you. first off, who is chad wolf? >> he's someone been with the department of home security for a long time. he started there with the tsa after 9/11. he left to become a lobbiest for 11 years then came back at nielsen's chief of staff, the form rer dhs secretary who left in april when the president was upset about the rising border numbers. he's seen as someone, you and i have found this in talking to sources, who does as he's told and weg liked by steven miller mainly because miller thinks he will carry out the hard line immigration policies he's told to do, but he's not seen as nearly as hard line add ken kuch

nelly. the problem is that he would not fit those eligibility requirements as required by federal law so right now, they're zeroing in on wolf, but i think what our reporting spells out is don't be fooled when people don't tell you as hard line d as ken. he laid out 16 options for nielsen so try to curb asylum at the border and number two, was separating family units. that was in december of 2017 before that policy went boo effect and later the next sum rer. >> he was asked about this. about family separation. because he was you know chief of staff to nielsen. during a con fir mfirmation hea. here's how he defend ed that role. >> as chief of staff and seenni adviser, did you have concerns with that policy and if so, did you bring them to the secretary at that time? >> my job wasn't to determine

whether it was the right or wrong policy. my job at the time was to ensure that the secretary had all the information she had. >> so he's stribing himself more as a functionary there, someone not in charge of making the policy, but just putting it on paper and presenting it to the secretary. his relationship with miller, what can we say about that? i was told they had some communication at least while nielsen was secretary because he was chief of staff and when miller would call nielsen, he would get chad wolf quite a bit. why do administration officials believe that miller would have could potentially have a lot of influence on wolf? >> for a lot of the reasons we just saw and that display from his confirmation hearing. i should point out also that he was not actually confirmed to that position. he stills sort of in the role of understood secretary without being senate confirmed. but he said look, i was just

carry iing out orders and that might be who miller looking at for this position. someone who he can influence at dhs while he stays at the white house close to the president's ear. someone who can fulfill his wishes on immigration while they're looking for someone else to be able to be tapped to then go to the senate and fulfill this more full time. he'll do as he's told. but as you and i both learned, it's not just about immigration. dhs is a huge agency. think about our election infrastructure, cybersecurity. airport, the very reason dhs was founded in the wake of 9/11 to combat terrorism and now with the new threat of domestic terrorism, from extreme right wing groups and white supremacists. this is a big job. not just about immigration. the r more we've done into this, the more it's look iing like they're seeing this role through the prism of immigration and who will channel steven miller and carry out tough policies this

white house wants on immigration. zpl one other point i want to make, there is concern b about the ability of this administration to find somebody who is confirmable by the senate. who will actually want this job. of secretary of the department of homeland security. because it is such a high profile and very continroversia position. i spoke to jay johnson, the former head of dhs and i want to read what he said about continuing to put acting members into those roles. he says i look at current dhs with great despair and worry. we need a presidentially appointed senate confirmed official in the job of protect ing the homeland from the land, sea, air and the ports and in cyber space. given this administration's focus on the southern border, easy to forget all these other vital homeland security missions. the job is too big and too important to fill again with another acting from somewhere from within the ranks at dhs. a president who neglects for too long finding a nominee for the job is himself neglecting his

duty to perfect the homeland. thank you. you can read that full report on nbc news.com. and senator bernie sanders says he is back. >> i am more ready than ever to help create a government based on the principles of justice, economic justice, racial justice, social justice and environmental justice. to put it bluntly, i am back. >> but a new iowa presidential caucus poll shows him in fourth place behind biden, warren and buttigieg. joining me now, campaign manager for bernie sanders. it's always good to see you. thanks for coming on the show. >> thank you. can i say a word about that poll? >> yes, you can.

>> there's another one today and it shows bernie sanders surging two points behind joe biden so while we have a lot of concern b b about whether to rely on these polls, i want to note there's some that demonstrate this campaign is indeed surging as we believe it is. >> let me ask you about the health scare and what it means for the campaign. how are you planning on overcoming doubts that voters might have about bernie sanders' fitness for office and that's not me saying it. we've heard voters on the trail say it. >> you saw him in new york. his heart is doipg well. has a couple of stints put in to his arteries, which has increased blood flow. he's feeling better. if you want to talk about his heart, we welcome it because his heart has always been with the working class of america. they deal with adversity in their own lives. we are an understood dog campaign. the working class is an underdog class. we have common bond with the fact that the establishment is

rigged against us and we are fighting uphill and i think this battle through adversity one we thrive on and that the working class thrives on. ocasio-cortez came out for bernie sanders over the weekend at the queens rally. where he got that large crowd. who were you hoping she will help you with in terms of demographics? >> if you look at visually on stage, you see this young latina women, youngest elected member of congress and 78-year-old jewish american man running for president. you see the multiracial working class coalition we are building right there in front of your eyes. if you saw the 26,000 plus who showed up, all different ethnicities and language, it's the kind of coalition we need, not only to win the primary, but to defeat donald trump and transform this country and it's right there on stage looking at you u in the face. >> you guys have raised quite a bit of money. 25.3 million for the q3, third

quarter i should say. that's more than everybody else. how do you plan -- >> 18 bucks a pop. >> how do you plan on translating that to a lead in a majority of the polls? >> yeah, it's people. you look at the dollar figures. it's people. over 3 million individual donations. over 1 million individual don s donors, a movement across america. it is growing. the biggest in presidential history. it is the only campaign this campaign that has more individual contributions than donald trump so the proof f is in the pudding. we are building the kind of movement you have to have, a grass roots movement to upend the corporate interest, the corporate power that controls american society. we're demonstrating it now. >> here's how the nbc politics team has talked about the struggles to rebound with taffing strategy and help. the biggest challenge has been the lingering disagreements on how to retool strategy from his campaign for 2020.

those clashes have been apparent in new hampshire, the high stakes first in the nation primary state where he won in 2016 with 60% of the vote. but where the latest state polling has him in third place trailing warren and biden by double digits even before his health care. that's by julia gary who cover your campaign. what's your response? >> i'm shocked to hear a story that is riding out for discounting bernie sanders' campaign. that's fine. i like being underestimated. the whole campaign does. we like to be judged by what happens on february 3rd in iowa, february 11th in new hampshire. we feel good about where we stand but i think there's a lot of people who discount the fact you build the large rer individual doenor network, walmart workers and teachers giving $18 a pop. that's what we like to be judged by and when you look at that and the fact these endorsements have come out, this is a campaign on the rise and i like that many in the lead circles decide oh, no,

bernie sanders is done. that's fine. i'd like them to keep saying that because we gain momentum and energy off of it. >> still holding you to bringing mr. sanders on our show. we want to talk b about taxes. >> yes. o okay. we'll maek it happen. >> thanks so much. a quick programming note. julian castro will join ali velshi at 3:00 p.m. eastern on msnbc and in less than han our, the cease fire in northern syria will expire. matt bradley is on the ground in iraq talking to refugees. he joins me next. alking to refus he joins me next isn't working at its best? taking metamucil every day can help. metamucil supports your daily digestive health using a special plant-based fiber called psyllium. psyllium works by forming a gel in your digestive system to trap and remove the waste that weighs you down. metamucil's gelling action also helps to lower cholesterol and slows sugar absorption to promote healthy blood sugar levels. so, start feeling lighter and more energetic by taking metamucil every day.

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the cease fire in northern syria expires in less than an hour. president erdogan met with put nn sochi today where they announced they plan to take joint control over the territory. it's forced thousands of kurds from their homes. matt bradley joins us. matt, what are you hearing? >> yeah, there's some 300,000 people who have been displaced from their homes f since this fighting started last week. of those, probably 7,000 have arrived here in iraqi kurdistan and i was at the refugee camp just yesterday. it's a really pitiful sight there. the place is filled with children. there's some 2,000 children who have made it here to kurdish iraq and for them, it's a

really, really difficult situation. they're going to have to be t e taken care of and the united nations says a lot of them are going to need psycho social counseling. remember, this whole thing happened so abruptly. no warning to the kurds or anyone else in the region when president trump decided to withdraw u.s. troops from the border with turkey and sort of set in motion this rapid set of events that have led to what a lot of people are calling a humanitarian catastrophe. i spoke to some ref yugees yesterday. here's what they told me. >> he says his house is is destroyed. doesn't expect to go back because the cease fire. says there's nothing to go back to. >> blames everybody. united nations, turks, americans. that man, that gentleman i spoke with, he was very angry when i first approached him, he didn't

want to speak to an american reporter and a lot of these people were throwing around donald trump by name. blaming him along with turkey, the syrian regime of al assad. for a lot of these people, they can't dpo back because their homes have been b destroyed. everything he had the to return to in syria, it's been destroyed. but there's other reasons. we kept hearing this term, ethnic cleansing. that's one of the goals of erdogan. he wants to push the kurds away from the border with turkey, but he also wants to resettle some 2 million arab syrians who had sought refuge in turkey back into that kurdish land so that's why we keep hearing ethnic cleansing and why so many kurds feel they're never be b able to go home. >> and nbc news has new reporting today about how u a senator and fox news analyst trieded to change the president's mind on withdrawing

troops from syria. their solution, show him a map. from capitol hill, nbc news national security correspondent, so show him a map. what happened? >> that's right. so it was a map that showed where coalition and syrian democratic forces were stationed throughout syria, but the point that was emphasized was that about three quarters of the oil in syria is actually up in the northeast and is held in areas controlled by the syrian democratic forces. the opposition forces the u.s. and coalition forces have been backing now for serl years and it was not just the land was controlled, but also the air space. so these trump ally, people we call the trump whisperers, they sat him down with this map and said if you leave syria, this area, then iran will move right in and not only potentially control these oil fields and all that revenue, but the air space overhead, katy. >> the president is still on the

fence about i think what he wants to do. it's very unclear to me what he wants to do. what is the message that's being sent to the pentagon, to congress, about what he intended to do with those troops? >> nobody knows. i would say since this decision to withdraw all u.s. troops out of northeast syria, every single day we have gotten a different answer about what this looks like. remember the original white house statement said a that they were going to be move d reappropriated within the region. people were telling us then that would be iraq. potentially lly more of the ira kurdistan area so you wouldn't have an issue with the total amount of troops allowed to be in iraq. some would probably be moved into kuwait. then the secretary said they'll go into western iraq. then trump says they're going to be moved home. every single day, we have gotten a different answer to what this looks like. what we know is that as of now, the troops who are inside of

what is sort of a safe zone area in syria, those troops are being moved out and into iraq. we know the troops are in the south near the jor ddanian bord. for u now, they're going to stay so the big question is do any other troops besides the 250 or 300 stay as part of this joint effort to potentially continue to patrol the areas around the oil fields. that's what everyone is waiting to hear. >> thank you very much. up next, an elite to defend america's elites. we're going to have fun. stick with us. e fun. stick with us. joint replacing, and depression relieving company. from the day you're born we never stop taking care of you. there are lots of people who are confused about which medicare plan is right for them. hey, that's me. i barely know where to start. well, start here with me, karen. i'm a licensed humana sales agent. well, it's nice to

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principal. we can help you plan for that. start today at principal.com. breaking news on the var sis at this time blues scandal. a grand jury has swrunded on you additional charges including lori loughlin. they allege the parents conspired to commit federal program bribery by bribing the employees of southern doofl push their kids through admissions. in exchange for briebbes, they helped enroll the children as athletic recruits regardless offing an let tick ability. and 75% of americans think people like themselves have too little influence in washington. meanwhile, the majority of americans say wealthy people, large businesses, and wall street have too much influence on washington. my next guest says the american elite has so make some changes, but he's also one of those elite

members. and he's also here -- >> you're crazy to say the word. >> eleek. >> joel stein is the author of the new book "in defense of elitism" i'm glad you're here. >> the var sis ifsity blues thi bad look. >> met forric arms had the type of arms that will be useless against the pop liulist arms wh are real parms. but here in print none of them will know about it. >> this might be more dangerous right here. i love when you read my book. >> i enjoin it. you're a very witty writer. >> tell me, the elitism. >> i tried to write a book because of situation we've got ourselves in is ridiculous. if you told me there with have been a populous revolution, i

would have thought there would have been a natural disaster or unforced error. but we're throwing everyone out with any expertise and allowing people to operate with their gut. people who know more than the generals and think the constitution is phony. he use the word phony more than coughfield. we know someone who appreciates the constitution and appreciates that we don't have a direct democracy. >> no one has quoted catcher in the rye on this set, i don't think. >> that's old school. >> that's old school elitism there. >> yes. >> we are many the midinned mid change. and he did rail against ezbleets and against you. >> there was a market for that. high do you think that market was -- why do you think it was right for the taking? >> the first thing i do in the book is i go to the county in america which had the highest percentage of trump voters. >> miami. >> miami as it's pronounced. >> miami, texas. >> i heard it as miami. >> if you ever go down there they'll teach you.

i wanted to see what they thought of the elites. hey think has happened is there's been great changes. and i'm not sure which more than other ones. but feminism has really changed, i think the word in the last ten years. there's been a demographic shift. the knowledge economy, people have moved to cities. there's been all these changes together have made people really uncomfortable. even though white christians are still the most powerful block in our country, you feel acceleration, you don't feel speed. what they've noticed is that they have less power than they used to have, and it's freaking them out. they're in an existential crisis and they feel discriminated against. >> this is not an indictment on populist or voters who like populism. >> no. one of the problems that the elite need to work on is we are smug. >> you're not turning your nose up at the middle of the country? >> i'm working really hard not

to. naturally i'm a horrible smug person by the title of the book. but people have been telling me that since i was a kid, had they called me precocious, which means smug child, real. >> i got it. >> so i'm trying, you know, people are always thinking oh, the people who voted for trump aren't voting for their own interests and they just need to be educate and people need to know elizabeth warren's medicare for you will plan would be great for them. these people know exactly what they're voting for and they're not voting selfishly, they're fogting for what they think is the best interest of the country. the same reason rich people vote for higher taxes for themselves, they're voting for what's best for this country which is what they're doing. >> you're still friends from the folks down in miami? >> i was nervous about whether they would like the book 'the two main people i talk to the book,dy ann a diane and jerry,

want to misrepresent their lives and i know that's done all the time but they liked it. >> i know you called me an elitist but i went to a state school. >> i'm sorry. >> joel stein, the book is "in defense of elitism" if you need a break from the daily news cycle or just a little exit ramp that's not quite too far from the daily news cycle, read it. >> but it's not satire, i'm really worried. >> all right. well then i -- okay. >> yeah. >> in defense of elitism. joel stein. we'll be right back. understand sm. joel stein. we'll be right back. understand if you have moderate to severe psoriasis

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one more thing before we go. a push for paid family leave for a bunch of dad or dad-vokates. the cofounder of reddit and husband of serena williams, he and several other dads are on capitol hill today with thousand of signatures withal lies and business leaders across the country who took a pledge to take full leave or support those who do. you can see they're meeting with marco rubio who has a bill he's introduced. i'm going to have more on this tonight on nbc nightly news with lester holt. please watch. check your local listings. your local listings, not your lostal listings. >> when lostal becomes a big word i'll make sure we credit

you. >> i appreciate you do everything you can -- >> think it's an important story. there are a few bills through the in cop griess. some say we should pay with it with a $2 a week payroll tax, others say borrow against social security in the future. those bills haven't gone anywhere, which is frustrating. but in talking to alexis yesterday, he says it's confident because we're in a moment where the majority of americans want it. >> yeah. >> and it's just a matter of when. >> yeah. >> not if. >> it's sensible policy that happens to be economically sound. >> i think once dads get really vocal about it and helping lead the way, it's something that will change. i say that slightly in a sad way because the halls of congress are so occupied mostly by men. >> thank you, good to see you. >> it's tuesday, october 22nd. as of this very minute right now, the 120-hour pause placed

on the turkish